On February 26, 2018, Head of School Dr. Alex Curtis shared a letter with the school community explaining Choate’s solidarity with the Eight Schools Association (ESA) in support of the anti-gun violence movement. “It is hard to imagine any topic that would be more worthy today of our leaders’ focus. Do not let our students’ voices go unheard this time,” stated the letter, which was written jointly by the heads of the eight schools.
The Connecticut Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) also sent an open letter to elected officials in Connecticut, which “implores our elected state officials and state representatives in Congress to capitalize on the reputation they have earned for recognizing the magnitude of this human rights issue.” The letter was signed by the heads of eighty-six Connecticut independent schools, including Dr. Curtis. It concludes: “There can be no more compelling issue for bipartisan cooperation than the safety of America’s children. Our children deserve better.”
Dr. Curtis, who is the current president of the Eight Schools Association, said that the he and his fellow heads had long agreed that “there may be a moment when we should speak as a single voice. So, after Parkland, when we saw the reaction to that, this seemed to be a particularly strong moment.”
He went on, “It was clearly resonating with and important to our own students. We wanted two things: to use our voices to join the national debate and to show support to our students who are doing important, remarkable things.”
Laila Hawkins ’19, who, along with some fifty Choate students and faculty, attended the March for Our Lives in New York City on March 24, agreed that the letters were important. “By sending out that letter, it really does assure me that the School is thinking about activism,” she said. “They’re saying, ‘We need to stand by this because this is going to protect our kids.’” Hawkins continued, “The fact that he did that really shows that Choate is trying to think about the future and is really aware of what’s going on in the world and has a commitment to protect us.”
The Eight Schools Association has rarely issued such letters. As Dr. Curtis explained, “Different schools might have different stances. We bring different perspectives.” He went on, “There may be only a few items — safety might be the only one — that are an umbrella that affects not just the Eight Schools, not just independent schools, but schools in America.”
The letter from the ESA received an influx of support from a variety of people. Other heads of schools from other locations reached out to Dr. Curtis asking about the letter and the process of initiating a similar one. Other schools even asked to sign on to the letter, but the heads in the ESA instead encouraged them to do something similar with schools in their area. “It seemed more effective to have this same thing happening over and over in different geographic locations across the country,” said Dr. Curtis.
While many students like Hawkins had positive responses to the letter, some students felt differently. “I feel that Dr. Curtis’s letter accomplished absolutely nothing. It was just a passionately written letter to make people feel good. They did not stand behind certain policies. They did not support any organizations. They did not promise to call representatives, or to use the school’s power to pressure legislators. The letter was a way of taking pressure off the schools without actually doing anything,” said Brent Valentine ’19.
Dr. Curtis does not see the issue as political. “I don’t think that we should make the safety of students, to learn and be at school, a political issue. I understand the complexities of guns in the United States. However, if you boil it down to making sure our students are protected, it should not be a partisan issue. It should not be a political issue. It should be something we can all support and stand behind.”
Recent events understandably have the potential to incite fear in students at Choate and across America. About how prepared the community is in the case of an event like this, Dr. Curtis said, “Safety has been a high priority for me, whether that’s something as simple as our crossings, or as important as the report we did last year to make sure that everyone knows that they should feel safe in their relationships. We have, for a long time, been doing a lot of drills. I hope students recognize why we do all the things that we do, even though in that day, it may be inconvenient.”
About crisis preparation, Dr. Curtis continued, “With crisis management, you practice with all the hope in the world that you will never have to do it. I do encourage, if there are things people are worrying about, that they talk to a trusted adult, and then we can have more conversation and put policies in place and have more practice. We’ll do all of those things.”
